Ariel Gordon's Blog, page 69
February 20, 2012
flakes
All photos Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. February 20, 2012.
* * *
Shockingly, the girl was a full and willing participant in today's walk in Ass Forest. As long as she got to go first, that is...
We mostly stuck to deer paths, which meant that we were alone during our walk, which for me is always a good thing. (Dogs jumping on and/or running at the girl full tilt! People talking loudly on their phones WHILE WALKING IN THE FOREST!)
The strangest part of the whole experience was when the girl announced that we were leaving 'stickland' for 'World War Two.' We looked at her and then at each other, unsure if she had any sense of what WW2 was or what it might look like...
Then M tripped over a bare but fully articulated deer spine. And Aa fell down and cut her hand on a branch.
She looked up at us and said, "See, I told you it was World War Two!"
February 17, 2012
Postered!
* * *
You've been postered. Consider yourself a lamppost.
February 16, 2012
Risky behaviour
Aqua Books will celebrate it's last Mondo! Poetry festival at its location at 274 Garry Street...and it's a humdinger!
March 6-10, we'll celebrating Anne Szumigalski, the author of fifteen books, and one of Canada's most respected poets, essayists and editors.
Szumigalski was the recipient of many literary awards and prizes and left behind a rich literary legacy in her wake. Her passing in April 1999 was mourned by all those she had touched.
Here are the first two events of Mondo! Szumigalski:
Mondo! Szumigalski
MARATHON of Anne Szumigalski's Risks
When: Tuesday, March 6, 7 pm.
Where: Aqua Books (274 Garry Street)
Cost: FREE
Featuring 32 of Winnipeg's established and emerging poets, some surprise out of town guests AND an introduction from Montreal writer Mark Abley, Anne's literary executor.
Anne Szumigalski's Risks: a poem (Red Deer College Press, 1983) is an exuberant play on words, a serious poem that reflects on life and the craft of poetry – Risks is these and more. It is the story of L – poet, critic, lover. His poignantly comic love affair with the creations of his own imagination, with the beguiling Crystal, with his own words, and finally with himself. In poetry ranging from the delicate and subtle to the sardonic and ironic, Anne Szumigalski has forged a style uniquely her own.
Mark Abley is a writer and editor living in Montreal. As a young man in Saskatoon, he was deeply influenced by Anne Szumigalski, whose literary executor he would eventually become. He has written three collections of poetry, two books for children, and several non-fiction books. The best-known of them, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, was published internationally and translated into French, Spanish and Japanese. Abley is now preparing a volume of selected poems as well as a creative non-fiction book about Duncan Campbell Scott.
* * *
Mondo! Szumigalski
Launch of A Woman Clothed in Words
Featuring Mark Abley, Elizabeth Philips and Anne Simpson
When: Tuesday, March 6, 8 pm.
Where: Aqua Books (274 Garry Street)
Cost: FREE
Anne Szumigalski was one of Canada's most prominent poets. With her published works, as well as with her teaching and magnanimous guidance, she did much to put prairie Canadian poetry on the map. But Anne was more than a poet. She also wrote fiction, drama, literary non-fiction, and even a Prairie liturgy. A Woman Clothed in Words (Coteau Books, 2012) is a treasure trove of the best of the many literary faces of Anne Szumigalski.
Please join Coteau Books and Mondo! Szumigalski for the launch of A Woman Clothed in Words. Light refreshments will follow the launch.
*
Anne Simpson was a winner of the 2004 Griffin Poetry Prize for Loop, her second poetry book. Is, her most recent book of poems, is structured around the proliferation and division of cells. She writes fiction and non-fiction as well. She has worked as a writer-in-residence at a number of universities and libraries across the country.
Elizabeth Philips is the author of four collections of poetry. Her most recent collection, Torch River, was released by Brick Books in 2007. Her poetry has won two Saskatchewan Book awards and been nominated for other provincial and national awards. She has taught creative writing in various programs across Canada and is Director of the Banff Centre's Writing with Style program. She works as a freelance editor and mentor. She lives in Saskatoon.
March 6-10, we'll celebrating Anne Szumigalski, the author of fifteen books, and one of Canada's most respected poets, essayists and editors. Szumigalski was the recipient of many literary awards and prizes and left behind a rich literary legacy in her wake. Her passing in April 1999 was mourned by all those she had touched.
Here are the first two events of Mondo! Szumigalski:
Mondo! Szumigalski
MARATHON of Anne Szumigalski's Risks
When: Tuesday, March 6, 7 pm.
Where: Aqua Books (274 Garry Street)
Cost: FREE
Featuring 32 of Winnipeg's established and emerging poets, some surprise out of town guests AND an introduction from Montreal writer Mark Abley, Anne's literary executor.Anne Szumigalski's Risks: a poem (Red Deer College Press, 1983) is an exuberant play on words, a serious poem that reflects on life and the craft of poetry – Risks is these and more. It is the story of L – poet, critic, lover. His poignantly comic love affair with the creations of his own imagination, with the beguiling Crystal, with his own words, and finally with himself. In poetry ranging from the delicate and subtle to the sardonic and ironic, Anne Szumigalski has forged a style uniquely her own.
Mark Abley is a writer and editor living in Montreal. As a young man in Saskatoon, he was deeply influenced by Anne Szumigalski, whose literary executor he would eventually become. He has written three collections of poetry, two books for children, and several non-fiction books. The best-known of them, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages, was published internationally and translated into French, Spanish and Japanese. Abley is now preparing a volume of selected poems as well as a creative non-fiction book about Duncan Campbell Scott.
* * *
Mondo! Szumigalski
Launch of A Woman Clothed in Words
Featuring Mark Abley, Elizabeth Philips and Anne Simpson
When: Tuesday, March 6, 8 pm.
Where: Aqua Books (274 Garry Street)
Cost: FREE
Anne Szumigalski was one of Canada's most prominent poets. With her published works, as well as with her teaching and magnanimous guidance, she did much to put prairie Canadian poetry on the map. But Anne was more than a poet. She also wrote fiction, drama, literary non-fiction, and even a Prairie liturgy. A Woman Clothed in Words (Coteau Books, 2012) is a treasure trove of the best of the many literary faces of Anne Szumigalski.
Please join Coteau Books and Mondo! Szumigalski for the launch of A Woman Clothed in Words. Light refreshments will follow the launch.
*
Anne Simpson was a winner of the 2004 Griffin Poetry Prize for Loop, her second poetry book. Is, her most recent book of poems, is structured around the proliferation and division of cells. She writes fiction and non-fiction as well. She has worked as a writer-in-residence at a number of universities and libraries across the country.
Elizabeth Philips is the author of four collections of poetry. Her most recent collection, Torch River, was released by Brick Books in 2007. Her poetry has won two Saskatchewan Book awards and been nominated for other provincial and national awards. She has taught creative writing in various programs across Canada and is Director of the Banff Centre's Writing with Style program. She works as a freelance editor and mentor. She lives in Saskatoon.
February 14, 2012
Reprint: Contemporary Verse 2
From the Winter/Hiver 2012 issue of Contemporary Verse 2:
Ariel Gordon's Hump is replete with poems that evoke the intricate textures, sounds and colours of nature. In the opening poem, "Spring in Assiniboine Forest," the narrator clambers through the moss, roots, mushrooms, spores, roots and mud to the sound of the bullfrogs' "balloon-rub chorus." The other poems in the section continue delving into the fecundity of the natural world, exploring the shifting seasons and the borders between city and countryside. The book then moves into the intimate realm with poems flecked with humour. "Tit Poem" portrays a sister's feistiness before and after a mastectomy. "Somniliquy" and "Pre-conception" depict the narrator's tender exasperation at her husband's vocalizations and snoring that wake her at night.
Hump's second section is devoted to the gestational countdown before giving birth, from two months of pregnancy to nine. The sense of abundance in this section mirrors that of the first, as Gordon carefully layers image after evocative image to vividly convey the sensations of a body irrevocably transitioning into the maternal. For example, in one poem the narrator's body is described in terms of "loamy curves of battered clay," and in another poem, it is a "dip & dunk tank, the basin overflowing." The title of one of my favourite poems in the book, "Eight months: what to expect when you're expecting," plays on the title of a popular textbook for expectant mothers. Gordon cleverly arranges and transforms the usual barrage of unsolicited advice received by most pregnant women into deft, wry couplets. Expectant mothers might want to make multiple photocopies of the poem to hand it out each time they receive another "helpful" suggestion.
The third section is devoted to the experience of new motherhood, containing richly sensual poems that depict the sleeplessness, lack of of personal space and endless cycles of breastfeeding. In one poem, the narrator laments, "there is no poetry in sour two-day-old laundry/ & greasy crumbs in the seams of my days." However, the book comes full circle with poems that return to nature, with the narrator now accompanied by her toddler as they witness and experience the natural world together - from being assailed by cankerworms rappelling from an infested ancient elm, to tiptoeing over worms and snails during a walk in the park.
Gordon has already received accolades for this book, including the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry in 2011. Brimming with finely crafted poems that thrum with life and love, Hump is indeed a very promising debut.
- Fiona Tinwei Lam
Ariel Gordon's Hump is replete with poems that evoke the intricate textures, sounds and colours of nature. In the opening poem, "Spring in Assiniboine Forest," the narrator clambers through the moss, roots, mushrooms, spores, roots and mud to the sound of the bullfrogs' "balloon-rub chorus." The other poems in the section continue delving into the fecundity of the natural world, exploring the shifting seasons and the borders between city and countryside. The book then moves into the intimate realm with poems flecked with humour. "Tit Poem" portrays a sister's feistiness before and after a mastectomy. "Somniliquy" and "Pre-conception" depict the narrator's tender exasperation at her husband's vocalizations and snoring that wake her at night.
Hump's second section is devoted to the gestational countdown before giving birth, from two months of pregnancy to nine. The sense of abundance in this section mirrors that of the first, as Gordon carefully layers image after evocative image to vividly convey the sensations of a body irrevocably transitioning into the maternal. For example, in one poem the narrator's body is described in terms of "loamy curves of battered clay," and in another poem, it is a "dip & dunk tank, the basin overflowing." The title of one of my favourite poems in the book, "Eight months: what to expect when you're expecting," plays on the title of a popular textbook for expectant mothers. Gordon cleverly arranges and transforms the usual barrage of unsolicited advice received by most pregnant women into deft, wry couplets. Expectant mothers might want to make multiple photocopies of the poem to hand it out each time they receive another "helpful" suggestion.
The third section is devoted to the experience of new motherhood, containing richly sensual poems that depict the sleeplessness, lack of of personal space and endless cycles of breastfeeding. In one poem, the narrator laments, "there is no poetry in sour two-day-old laundry/ & greasy crumbs in the seams of my days." However, the book comes full circle with poems that return to nature, with the narrator now accompanied by her toddler as they witness and experience the natural world together - from being assailed by cankerworms rappelling from an infested ancient elm, to tiptoeing over worms and snails during a walk in the park.
Gordon has already received accolades for this book, including the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry in 2011. Brimming with finely crafted poems that thrum with life and love, Hump is indeed a very promising debut.
- Fiona Tinwei Lam
February 12, 2012
Lansdowne extra-curricular
I picked up three things at Aqua after the Lansdowne reading.
My demon mug/pencil holder. It's the worst mug ever if you're right handed, as I am, because the demon's eyes look deeply into yours as you go to drink. But it's an excellent pencil holder and I'd left it behind by accident.
A half-dozen books for Anna. One of the things she's missed about Aqua/Eat! bistro, besides the excellent chicken dippers, was the time she spent in the kids' section. We've a full bookcase in her room, but we can always jam in a few more...
A stack of 1940s kids science books: Birds. Flowers, Fruits, Seeds. Wasps. Saving Our Wildlife.
They're all from Florence Nightengale School Library. And they're all gorgeously bound, or maybe it's re-bound, because the covers, all different, look very 60ish. And the innards look like they've been handled by thousands of children.
Aqua had about thirty of these beauties at one point and Julia and I seriously considered buying them, ripping out the much-loved innards, and using the covers for our chappie. But we were worried about not finding the seventy-five we needed for a JackPine run...and so we didn't.
But I was very glad to see ten or fifteen of them still on Aqua's shelves, so I scooped them up. And maybe I'll make notebooks out of them. Or a different chapbook. We'll see...
My demon mug/pencil holder. It's the worst mug ever if you're right handed, as I am, because the demon's eyes look deeply into yours as you go to drink. But it's an excellent pencil holder and I'd left it behind by accident.
A half-dozen books for Anna. One of the things she's missed about Aqua/Eat! bistro, besides the excellent chicken dippers, was the time she spent in the kids' section. We've a full bookcase in her room, but we can always jam in a few more...A stack of 1940s kids science books: Birds. Flowers, Fruits, Seeds. Wasps. Saving Our Wildlife.
They're all from Florence Nightengale School Library. And they're all gorgeously bound, or maybe it's re-bound, because the covers, all different, look very 60ish. And the innards look like they've been handled by thousands of children.
Aqua had about thirty of these beauties at one point and Julia and I seriously considered buying them, ripping out the much-loved innards, and using the covers for our chappie. But we were worried about not finding the seventy-five we needed for a JackPine run...and so we didn't.
But I was very glad to see ten or fifteen of them still on Aqua's shelves, so I scooped them up. And maybe I'll make notebooks out of them. Or a different chapbook. We'll see...
Bilingual Lansdowne #4
Tonight was Aqua Books' bilingual Lansdowne, where we select a French poet and s/he picks two English poets to read with him/her.
Part of the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry Reading Series, this event is always our toughest sell...and my favourite event of the series.
Once the poets have been selected, the translation begins. Charles Leblanc very very kindly translates a poem from each of the English poets. And if the French poet doesn't have anything already translated into English, we find a French-to-English poet to translated one of their pieces.
When the work is performed, the English poets put the poem of theirs that was translated at the end of their set. And then s/he either read the French version her/himself or get Charles or the featured French poet to read it.
Tonight, Roger Leveille was the featured poet. He chose Katherena Vermette and Rosanna Deerchild, who identify as Metis and Cree respectively, to read with him. And, like always, Charles translated poems by both English poets. This year, he also read those poems and talked a bit about the translation process, which I always so enjoy.
Kate read poems about little birds and Winnipeg's North End and finished with a long poem about Louis Riel. Rosanna read a suite of poems from the point of view of a smart-ass urban crow.
And Roger read French/English poems from his 1999 collaboration with Tony Tascona but also a segment from the English translation of his French novel, The Setting Lake Sun, which is written from the point of view of a female Metis architect.
I hosted, which felt right, given that I curated the series. Though I wasn't involved with promotion of the series, which started after I left Aqua Books, it's something I was really proud of during the three years that I worked at Aqua.
And it was really really lovely, after the hectic few weeks I've had, to sit and listen to poetry in French and English, to listen to the translation, to hear such distinct but vital voices.
And then to stand and lead the applause.
(Also part of the evening was the idea that this would be one of the last performances any of us lousy poets would do at 274 Garry Street...)
Part of the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry Reading Series, this event is always our toughest sell...and my favourite event of the series.
Once the poets have been selected, the translation begins. Charles Leblanc very very kindly translates a poem from each of the English poets. And if the French poet doesn't have anything already translated into English, we find a French-to-English poet to translated one of their pieces.When the work is performed, the English poets put the poem of theirs that was translated at the end of their set. And then s/he either read the French version her/himself or get Charles or the featured French poet to read it.
Tonight, Roger Leveille was the featured poet. He chose Katherena Vermette and Rosanna Deerchild, who identify as Metis and Cree respectively, to read with him. And, like always, Charles translated poems by both English poets. This year, he also read those poems and talked a bit about the translation process, which I always so enjoy.
Kate read poems about little birds and Winnipeg's North End and finished with a long poem about Louis Riel. Rosanna read a suite of poems from the point of view of a smart-ass urban crow.
And Roger read French/English poems from his 1999 collaboration with Tony Tascona but also a segment from the English translation of his French novel, The Setting Lake Sun, which is written from the point of view of a female Metis architect.
I hosted, which felt right, given that I curated the series. Though I wasn't involved with promotion of the series, which started after I left Aqua Books, it's something I was really proud of during the three years that I worked at Aqua.
And it was really really lovely, after the hectic few weeks I've had, to sit and listen to poetry in French and English, to listen to the translation, to hear such distinct but vital voices.
And then to stand and lead the applause.
(Also part of the evening was the idea that this would be one of the last performances any of us lousy poets would do at 274 Garry Street...)
February 10, 2012
teeny-tiny poem
Every night we have to shake out
the duvet. The comforter in thick lumps
at our feet. One of us lies down, the other flaps:
the duvet a skirt settling after a twirl
the duvet lips closing over teeth,
the thought complete.
the duvet. The comforter in thick lumps
at our feet. One of us lies down, the other flaps:
the duvet a skirt settling after a twirl
the duvet lips closing over teeth,
the thought complete.
February 8, 2012
Advice from George Amabile
What advice would you give young poets? Mid-career poets? Poets-of-a-certain-age?
For me, the fascination I have always had with language, its mysterious ways of opening marvelously unexpected and often entirely unpredictable episodes of meaning and nuance and resonance, along with the delight I take in the rhythmic complexity and subtle sound patterns of a well written sentence or stanza or paragraph, has been an endlessly intriguing adventure that has remained vivid and fresh and has sustained my efforts for half a century.
All I can really say to a young writer is that, if you are able to take something like this brand of satisfaction from difficult and challenging work, you will go on writing long enough to arrive at something that is your own.
For mid-career poets I'd tell them how I had a lengthy lapse of desire and wrote nothing for nearly two years.
Though I did a lot of reading during that time and kept scribbling in my journal, it felt like my poetry days were done. I didn't want to go on doing what I was doing, making lighter, faded copies of earlier poems, and I had to face the possibility that I no longer wanted to publish anything.
Maybe it was a midlife crisis of belief in the value of writing itself, as a useful activity. Whatever it was, it ran its course, and I continued to work as a poet, but not until I had accepted the possibility that I had said all I had to say, or wanted to say, and could not go on writing simply out of habit or an act of will.
Poets of a certain age? It's never over till it's over. And it's never too late to surprise yourself by sounding like someone else who is still you.
* * *
I'm currently writing up a story for Prairie books NOW on George Amabile, whose 'lyrical retrospective' with Porcupine's Quill was launched last month.
And while I love this quote, there was absolutely no way that it could survive whole in a 500 word article...so I'm posting it here in its entirety.
For me, the fascination I have always had with language, its mysterious ways of opening marvelously unexpected and often entirely unpredictable episodes of meaning and nuance and resonance, along with the delight I take in the rhythmic complexity and subtle sound patterns of a well written sentence or stanza or paragraph, has been an endlessly intriguing adventure that has remained vivid and fresh and has sustained my efforts for half a century.All I can really say to a young writer is that, if you are able to take something like this brand of satisfaction from difficult and challenging work, you will go on writing long enough to arrive at something that is your own.
For mid-career poets I'd tell them how I had a lengthy lapse of desire and wrote nothing for nearly two years.
Though I did a lot of reading during that time and kept scribbling in my journal, it felt like my poetry days were done. I didn't want to go on doing what I was doing, making lighter, faded copies of earlier poems, and I had to face the possibility that I no longer wanted to publish anything.
Maybe it was a midlife crisis of belief in the value of writing itself, as a useful activity. Whatever it was, it ran its course, and I continued to work as a poet, but not until I had accepted the possibility that I had said all I had to say, or wanted to say, and could not go on writing simply out of habit or an act of will.
Poets of a certain age? It's never over till it's over. And it's never too late to surprise yourself by sounding like someone else who is still you.
* * *
I'm currently writing up a story for Prairie books NOW on George Amabile, whose 'lyrical retrospective' with Porcupine's Quill was launched last month.
And while I love this quote, there was absolutely no way that it could survive whole in a 500 word article...so I'm posting it here in its entirety.
February 7, 2012
Reading/Advice for New Writers: Tracy Hamon & Deborah Schnitzer
When: Saturday, February 18, 2:00 pm
Where: McNally Robinson Grant Park
Cost: FREE!
Please join Regina-based writer Tracy Hamon and Winnipeg's own Deborah Schnitzer as they share new work...and also new ideas for emerging writers.
Wondering what the benefit is of doing a writer's colony or workshop? They can tell you. Want to know where you can submit your work for publication? They can tell you. Want to know how to start a writers group? They can tell you.
* * *
Regina based poet Tracy Hamon's work has appeared in numerous Canadian literary magazines and anthologies. Her first book of poetry, This Is Not Eden, was a finalist for two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Portions of Interruptions in Glass won the 2005 City of Regina Writing Award, and was also shortlisted for two book awards in the 2010 Saskatchewan Book Awards. Tracy is president of the Sage Hill Writing Experience's Board of Directors, is the program manager for the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, and founded the Vertigo Reading Series in Regina.
Deborah Schnitzer is the winner of the 2010 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction for her An Unexpected Break in the Weather. "Just as Mordecai Richler did with St. Urbain Street in Montreal, University of Winnipeg English professor Deborah Schnitzer brings life and story to our own Corydon Avenue."-Winnipeg Free Press. Schnitzer is also the author of the novel, Gertrude Unmanageable, the long poem, Loving Gertrude Stein, as well as scholarly works and critical anthologies equally devoted to the unexpected.
Moderator Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. In spring 2010, Palimpsest Press published her first full-length poetry collection, Hump. She was the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer and the 2011 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Le Prix Lansdowne du poesie.
Where: McNally Robinson Grant Park
Cost: FREE!
Please join Regina-based writer Tracy Hamon and Winnipeg's own Deborah Schnitzer as they share new work...and also new ideas for emerging writers.
Wondering what the benefit is of doing a writer's colony or workshop? They can tell you. Want to know where you can submit your work for publication? They can tell you. Want to know how to start a writers group? They can tell you.* * *
Regina based poet Tracy Hamon's work has appeared in numerous Canadian literary magazines and anthologies. Her first book of poetry, This Is Not Eden, was a finalist for two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Portions of Interruptions in Glass won the 2005 City of Regina Writing Award, and was also shortlisted for two book awards in the 2010 Saskatchewan Book Awards. Tracy is president of the Sage Hill Writing Experience's Board of Directors, is the program manager for the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, and founded the Vertigo Reading Series in Regina.
Deborah Schnitzer is the winner of the 2010 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction for her An Unexpected Break in the Weather. "Just as Mordecai Richler did with St. Urbain Street in Montreal, University of Winnipeg English professor Deborah Schnitzer brings life and story to our own Corydon Avenue."-Winnipeg Free Press. Schnitzer is also the author of the novel, Gertrude Unmanageable, the long poem, Loving Gertrude Stein, as well as scholarly works and critical anthologies equally devoted to the unexpected.
Moderator Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. In spring 2010, Palimpsest Press published her first full-length poetry collection, Hump. She was the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer and the 2011 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Le Prix Lansdowne du poesie.
January 26, 2012
A banner day
So I wrestled with this banner for one of UMP's spring titles today, a Canadian reprint of a book about Louis Riel and Canadian identity formation. Like the L.B. Foote project, I'm excited about this book...
Part of my pleasure is being paid to look at photos of Louis Riel. Though it isn't a particularly good photo, I keep returning to this image of Monsieur Riel addressing the court at his trial.
This photo in particular was in the running for the cover - which was designed by David Drummond, who is a far better designer than I am - so I decided to re-use it here.
So it was the best kind of wrestling...and I got to look into Louis Riel's poor sad eyes all day.
Part of my pleasure is being paid to look at photos of Louis Riel. Though it isn't a particularly good photo, I keep returning to this image of Monsieur Riel addressing the court at his trial.This photo in particular was in the running for the cover - which was designed by David Drummond, who is a far better designer than I am - so I decided to re-use it here.
So it was the best kind of wrestling...and I got to look into Louis Riel's poor sad eyes all day.
